Virtualization is a technology that allows one computer to do the job of multiple computers by sharing resources of a single computer across multiple systems. Through the use of virtualization, multiple operating systems and applications can run on the same computer at the same time, thereby increasing utilization and flexibility of hardware. Virtualization allows servers to be decoupled from underlying hardware, thus resulting in multiple virtual machines sharing the same physical server hardware. In a virtual machine environment, virtual switches provide network connectivity between virtual machine interfaces and physical interfaces on the servers. The speed and capacity of today's servers allow for a large number of virtual machines on each server, which results in many virtual interfaces that need to be configured. The virtual machines may be moved between servers, in which case changes to policies for the virtual machines may be needed. There may also be network changes that result in policy changes for physical interfaces. In conventional systems, these policy changes typically require manual intervention or additional management tools, resulting in increased management complexity.
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